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I've always done everything on my own time-table, including waiting until after age 30 to get married. My husband and I remained childless and planned to never be parents, but now in my early 40's I'm feeling differently. I also am blessed in that I would be able to stay at home with the baby. For every story I've heard about age-related fertility issues, I've also heard of yet another couple who thought they couldn't get pregnant, didn't worry about birth control, and got a nice little surprise. I would like to hear from Freepers who have become parents either...

Sorry, but my children bore me to death!by HELEN KIRWAN-TAYLOLR, Daily Mail 08:00am 26th July 2006It's the start of the summer holidays, when millions of mothers despair at how to entertain their children for the next six weeks. What none of them dare say is that they would rather their children were still at school or, frankly, anywhere else. Helen Kirwan-Taylor, a 42-year-old writer, lives in Notting Hill, West London, with her businessman husband Charles and their sons Constantin, 12, and Ivan, ten. Here, she argues provocatively that modern women must not be enslaved by their children. The lies started...

PISCATAWAY, New Jersey, JULY 22, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Life without children is a growing social reality for an increasing number of American adults. This is the conclusion of the 2006 edition of "The State of Our Unions" report on marriage, released last week by the National Marriage Project. The project is based at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Up until recently, for most people, the greater part of adult life was spent with young children forming part of the household. A combination of marrying later, less children and longer life expectancy means, however, that a significantly greater part of...

In the name of the fatherhttp://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1033732006 http://tinyurl.com/ozefu DANI GARAVELLI Sun 16 Jul 2006 ONCE upon a time, I believed it didn't matter a whit whether a baby was born into a family with one parent or two. Or with two mothers or two fathers rather than a mother and a father. Why should it? What was important was not the number or gender of the parents, but whether or not they were loving and attentive. That was, of course, before I had any of my own. Now I realise that bringing up children is a challenge even for two well-meaning...

Two fuzzy heartbeats—our doctor pointed to the black-and-white monitor of the ultrasound machine, and we both squinted and pretended to see what he was talking about. A lima bean, we thought, with a smaller lima bean next to it? Sensing that we weren’t getting it, he punched a few keys and suddenly the small exam room at Cornell’s Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility filled with a rapid-fire thump-thump-thump-thump: our embryos on speakerphone. So wait, it had worked? Twice? When we still didn’t say anything, our other doctor piped up: “This is good news, you guys.” How did we feel?...

As I was leaving the House chambers for the weekend our Democrat Speaker of the House announced that the coming Monday would be the final day of this year’s General Assembly. He went on to state that there were still numerous resolutions on the calendar which we would need to be addressed prior to the summer adjournment. Interestingly, he specifically mentioned that one of the resolutions we would be hearing was being carried by the House Majority Leader Alice Madden (D), honoring the 90th anniversary of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. As a strong pro-life legislator I was disgusted...

A federal survey of men about sex, marriage, children and fatherhood has revealed one surprising statistic: Fully 64 percent of men had their first child between ages 20 and 29. So much for delayed daddyhood. To arrive at this surprising conclusion, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed almost 5,000 men ages 15 to 44 and 7,600 women about their feelings and relationships for what USA Today calls "the first comprehensive governmental glimpse into the male psyche." When men talk...this is what we find out: *Among black fathers, 25 percent fathered their first child as a teenager, compared with...

Jeremiah Clayton Jones discovered that his former fiancée was pregnant just three weeks before the baby was due, when an adoption-agency lawyer called and asked if he would consent to have his baby adopted. "I said absolutely not," said Mr. Jones, a 23-year-old Arizona man who met his ex-fiancée at Pensacola Christian College in Florida. "It was an awkward moment, hearing for the first time that I would be a father, and then right away being told, 'We want to take your kid away.' But I knew that if I was having a baby, I wanted that baby." Mr. Jones...

A funny thing happened to me the other day when my wife and I had, thank God, another baby (a boy). Many of my friends didn’t seem all that happy for me. Sure, they went through the motions of smiles and congratulations. But it was evident that many thought me insane. Why would a young man and his wife ruin their lives with eight children? Who could afford the day-school bills? Didn’t we want to live life a little, and not just be burdened with kids? It got downright surreal when a European film company pressed me, while my wife...

A seven-month pregnant woman - her belly vast - was at a supper with a friend. He, being of the family type, told her she was very lucky to be expecting a baby. He was the first person who had said such a thing, she told him. [snip] How is it that in cultures all over the world pregnancies prompt congratulations rather than anxious questions about childcare? How is it that in a culture equipped, materially and medically, to ease child-rearing, we are so reluctant to enjoy new life? [snip] The answer, I would argue, is that a bias against...

Another hectic week in the General Assembly is completed, and several important pro-family pieces of legislation are moving through the process. These bills will now move onto the Senate side as crossover approaches next week. At some point during the Senate debate we will need concerned citizens to contact their Senators to express support for the following bills. Stay tuned for further details. Student Survey Bill Delegate Tim Hugo's (R-40, Centreville) HB 1242 passed the House of Delegates this week by a vote of 93-4. This is legislation that will forbid school boards from surveying school children under 9th grade...

Three environmental activists were cooking up plastic explosives and had planned to test a device the day they were arrested, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday as they indicted them. The three face five to 20 years in federal prison if they are convicted of conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage property. The suspects planned assaults this spring in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, a 'loosey-goosey, sort of mist-of-the-fog kind of an organization' of environmental activists, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said. Eric McDavid, 28, Zachary Jensen, 20, and Lauren Weiner, 20, remain in jail. They could enter a...

After a delay of nearly a month, a Flagstaff woman accused of being connected with the 1998 firebombing of a logging company in Oregon has been released from jail. Kendall Tankersley, 28, also known as Sarah Harvey, was released from an Oregon jail Jan. 10 on $150,000 bond. She is back in Flagstaff, ready to begin taking two classes at Northern Arizona University. Tankersley, a former employee at the university, was indicted in November by a federal grand jury in Oregon. She is accused of attempted arson and arson, acting as a lookout, in connection with a fire at U.S....

New research by economists Professor Andrew Oswald at the University of Warwick, and Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee at London University's Institute of Education, reveals that the more daughters a family has the more likely the parents are to vote for left of centre parties. Sons, by contrast, make people more right-wing. The researchers examined the data in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) - a nationally representative sample of British households containing over 10,000 adult individuals. Individuals were tracked in each year from 1991 to 2004. Left of centre was measured by using individuals? support for the Labour Party or Liberal...

Presents Institution as "Patrimony of Humanity" VATICAN CITY, DEC. 4, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Children have the right to parents who are married, says Benedict XVI. The Pope made this point when addressing participants of a conference of presidents of the episcopal commissions in Latin America for the family and for life. The conference Saturday was organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family. "Children have the right to be born and to grow within a family based on marriage," said the Holy Father, who invited the ecclesial community to "present in all its richness the extraordinary value of marriage that, as...

BIRTHS TO UNMARRIED MOTHERS ARE at a record high in the United States--almost 1.5 million in 2004 alone, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. While the rising trend is of long standing, one novel factor driving up childbearing outside marriage is the growing popularity of single motherhood by donor insemination. The incidence of this "assisted reproduction," as it is called, has more than doubled in the last decade.Most public discussion of donor insemination for single women has been carried on in a neutral, positive, or breathlessly celebratory tone. Isn't it great, the thinking seems to be, that these...

News Tip: Upcoming Supreme Court Case 'Huge' for Abortion Rights, Law Professor Says “The question in this case isn’t whether Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned, but whether it is going to be severely undermined,’’ says Neil Siegel Monday, November 28, 2005 Durham, N.C. -- On Nov. 30, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a challenge to a New Hampshire law that could significantly affect abortion rights, a Duke University law professor says. In Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Court will consider, among other things, how courts should analyze abortion restrictions and whether a...

Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Sermon on the Table OF the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are...

New Orleans, LA (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life advocates say Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business, continues to exploit victims of Hurricane Katrina. The organization previously said it would provide morning after pills to victims, instead of food or shelter, and is now raising money off of the hurricane for its local abortion centers. On its national web site, Planned Parenthood solicits funds for Hurricane Katrina support efforts. In fine print, the abortion advocacy group explains that all of the money raised will be used to support its local abortion businesses. Under a headline "Help Those Affected by the Hurricane," Planned...

When it comes to the classroom, religious extremists have an ambitious agenda: to replace science with ideology at every opportunity. As if denying even that their own ideas can evolve, they've recently taken up their dusty arms against an old, familiar issue — the teaching of evolution in public schools. New Name, Same Agenda The supposed rival to the theory of evolution — creationism — now goes by the new name of "intelligent design." Just as with other phrases (like the Bush administration favorite, "culture of life"), the name change is merely the latest tactic in an ongoing strategy by...